IN NORTH AMERICA. 25 



growing spontaneously on the island of New York, was published 

 in the American Medical and Philosophical Register, by that 

 veteran botanist, Major John Le Conte. Many very valuable 

 botanical contributions were subsequently made to our scientific 

 journals, by the same distinguished naturalist. 



An excellent Catalogue of the hitherto known native and natu- 

 ralized Plants of North America, was published at Lancaster, 

 Pennsylvania, in 1813, by the Rev. Henry Muhlenberg, of that 

 city.* 



In 1814, the valuable and comprehensive Flora Americce Sep- 

 tentrionalis, by Frederick Pursh, was published in London. In 

 the same year, also, appeared the Florida Bostoniensis, by Dr. 

 Jacob Bigelow, a charming specimen of a local Flora of which 

 a second edition was published in 1824; likewise, a neat little 

 volume entitled a Synopsis of the Genera of American Plants, 

 printed at Georgetown, D. C, and understood to be compiled by 

 0. Rich, Esq. 



Botanical works began now to multiply, in the United States, 

 and the students of " the amiable science " found helps in their 

 delightful pursuit, which rendered it vastly more easy and satis- 

 factory than it had been to their predecessors. 



In 1816, Stephen Elliott, Esq., commenced the publication of 

 his Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, a work 

 of great value, and indispensable in the investigation of Southern 

 plants. In preparing it, he was much indebted, for materials and 

 information, to the industry and sagacity of that indefatigable 

 botanist and most amiable man, the late Doctor William Baldwin. 



In 1817, a pamphlet entitled Florida Ludoviciana was published, 

 in New York, by C. S. Rafinesque. This eccentric and rambling 

 naturalist although he had, by long experience and observation, 

 acquired considerable knowledge, and moreover issued several other 

 botanical publications, in subsequent years, yet, he made state- 

 ments so little reliable, held such peculiar views, and withal was so 

 addicted to extravagant innovations in nomenclature, that his pro- 



* In 1815, the Abbe Cohrea published, for the use of his class in Philadelphia, 

 a reduction of the genera in Muhlenberg's Catalogue to the natural families of 

 Jttssieu. This was appended to a second edition of the Catalogue, issued in 1818, 

 by that amiable man and excellent botanist, the late Solomon W. Conrad, and 

 was probably the earliest attempt in the United States to group our plants in 

 accordance with the natural method. 



